Understory

by Noah Soltau

I take off the moss covered deer skull and listen to you whistle in the dark I follow you into the house and take your place in the bed Your wife doesn’t notice Your children make spike pits and deadfall traps in the pines plaster of paris fox and bobcat paws under the mountain laurel keep an injured bat in a terrarium until it heals build a door of vines and stripped oak to a limestone cave under the hill paint a story in rust rabbit blood and old motor oil make spears from a Super Nintendo and pipes stolen from the neighbor’s trailer Your wife brings me the keys to your Mercedes I throw them into the fire On her knees she melts your gold watch into my retirement the handle of a dagger She goes out into the dark whistling Returns with a deer head Strips and boils it buries it in moss I wake up